Closing the Distance

Nehamas’ article certainly does a fantastic job of bringing contemporary issues into a realm of philosophic observation. For the purpose of this article, it seems as if censorship has come under fire so severely for economic reasons, especially given California’s known current financial crisis. It’s a quick buck to make: impose fines on businesses already breaking a minor law of selling mature products to immature people. And because I take all my moral cues from the Governator, I will have to profess my support for both Schwarzenegger and Plato on the issue at hand.
Since this article seems to have a couple of sides, I will first address the issue of censorship for the protection of minors and then address the claim that video games (and thereby their retailers) should be protected under the First Amendment.
There is an absolute need to establish a kind of exclusionary age at which minors are prevented from purchasing video games that have the potential to plant bad seeds in their minds. For games like Grand Theft Auto, repeatedly cited in the article, the characters are dubious in moral quality and their objectives seem to be exclusively violent and destructive. Plato talks a lot (especially on page 31) about the influence of others’ actions on our own and I do believe that this point overrides a lot of objections to de-censoring the video game industry. What we see is what we emulate. Even if the minors that play these “bad seed” video games may not engage in the exact behaviors that they command in the game, or make the choices that they make as they control game characters, I do believe that the very nature of the actions influence the way the player behaves, perhaps encouraging bouts of aggression or harm. Unfortunately, it seems that the argument for video games and their dubiously-causal relationship with real life choices rest on a lot of anecdotes. On one hand we may view the serial killer who kept a rousing video game hobby as absolute affirmation of the suspicion that video games encourage violent behavior. On the other hand, thousands of people play violent video games and never have an urge to imitate said violence.
But in keeping with Plato (pg 32 specifically) we must not forget the fact that poetry entices or enlivens those emotions that we must actively quell. Just the mere exposure to the negative is enough to nurture it inside of us. I do believe Plato has a point here because the law is cracking down on people who sell materials that will nourish these bad influences to those who are assumedly too young to make the distinction between those things that encourage positive feelings and those that encourage the negative ones. There is a need to protect the youth from corrupting instruments, but the question of exactly what age they should be considered youth is absolutely the essential question in this debate. I personally feel that the age of sixteen should be considered age enough to choose the types of stimulus one can be exposed to.
In regards to the issue of video games and their retailers being protected under the First Amendment, I think it’s important to consider again the audience at which the industry aims. The video game industry has managed to pervade excessive censorship, but most likely the industry is subject to the mercy of a rating system that recommends the levels of maturity it feels a player must have in order to take part in the product. Because these precautions are already in place, I think the industry that regulates the production and distribution of video games has done its part in keeping within the boundaries of the First Amendment. They are expressing their art and creative productions in a way that is not overtly throwing their product into the hands of corruptible youth. There are restrictions set on exactly who can get access to these games. However, just as Aristotle said, we cull the most from our imagination’s interpretation between actions we see and the laws that govern them. Since video games are so realistic, perhaps we gain more from the connections in which we have an active part in than those which we simply observe. Taking this into account, it seems like video games like GTA are exclusively important for their overriding element of catharsis and its role in ridding us of the negative urges that plague. Although we’ve spoken a little about catharsis, I am skeptical of the supposed benefits of this therapeutic practice. Just because I still believe Plato’s proposition that we imitate what we see, so we should make efforts to limit ourselves and not overindulge in these stimuli, even on the basis of bleeding our wounds out. Playing video games might close the distance between the individual and the actions, or the player and the game, that is necessary to make catharsis effective. But I do not feel as if the government should be allowed to tell us exactly what amount of exposure is right for us. The guidelines in place provide a good start, but the truth lies in the sliding scale of human experience. What is good for some is not good for all. Though video games may provide catharsis for those mature individuals who chose to dangerously close the distance between the player and the game, they should be restricted from entering into the wrong hands, those being the hands of youth (at least those below ninth grade) that are not yet ready to handle the harsh realities of virtual reality.